Let’s move more!

There is very strong evidence that not being sufficiently active in your everyday life increases your risk of colon, breast and womb cancer. Recommendations are to aim for at least 30 minutes of activity a day – at a level that raises your heart rate and makes you feel warm. This activity can be done in one go or broken down into chunks of at least 10 minutes. Another goal is to achieve at least 10,000 steps a day.
No matter how active we are we can always improve and at this time of year many of us often resolve to do better! Sometimes however we need a little help to improve our physical activity levels.

Public Health England (PHE) have released a free app, ‘Active 10’, to encourage people to take small steps towards improving their physical activity levels. An ‘Active 10’ is a 10 minute period of brisk walking. You set your goal and then just pop your phone in your pocket and see how many ‘Active 10’ periods you achieve in a day (up to 3). There are various levels of reward stickers to encourage success – for instance ‘Walking Warrior’ bronze, silver and gold for achieving your daily goal for a week, 2 weeks and 3 weeks respectively.

PHE proclaim, “It’s easier than you think to fit [exercise] into your day”.